Together
Hello Reader,
Welcome to 2025! My team and I just returned from a business retreat, reflecting over 2024 and roadmapping 2025. We have some exciting things planned for this year.
Whether you are a tutor, educator, or parent, this year is going to be full of resources, tips, and strategies. And joy!
Here's what you can expect from me in 2025:
- Building Blocks for Academic Success. Success in learning, living, and leading starts with strong executive function, organization, critical thinking, and communication. Every Sunday evening we share a tip to strengthen foundational skills. Mark your calendar, add the building blocks to lesson plans, share it with clients, post on socials, and use it as your weekly focus—you won’t want to miss it! Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or LinkedIn to see the newest tip.
- 2 Minutes Together. New blog posts and newsletters focusing primarily on educational tips and tools, tutoring, running a business and a home, and expanded posts on the Building Block tips. Plus exclusive offers and discounts for my subscribers!
- Business Basics PLUS. More time slots are now available in 2025 for exclusive coaching for those who want to go from sticky notes to start up in 6 weeks. Start your own tutoring, coaching, or lessons business with accountability and coaching!
- Educational Resources and Tutoring Tools. I'm developing products designed to help educators and clients alike, including a simple business template for teens who are thinking of starting a business, an annual reflect and roadmap template, and a workshop to teach tutors how to tutor online. I'm also updating some other resources.
- Clean the Chaos. I'm jumping right in with you and taking my own course to clean the chaos at home. I've already scheduled time this Saturday to tackle my closet. It's never too late to join us!
I'm excited to see where 2025 will take us. Have you set some goals for 2025? I'd love to hear about them. Hit reply and share your reflections or goals.
It's also ok to hit unsubscribe if this newsletter isn't for you. Nobody wants extra stuff in their email box.
This month's newsletter will highlight tips for classroom management, tips for classroom organization, explaining executive function skills to parents, and some easy meal-planning tips for busy people. Let's jump right into classroom management. Whether you are a parent, teacher, tutor, or substitute, you will find useful tips for calming the chaos.
How consistent are you in your classroom management?
Classroom management is hard to learn from a textbook, even if you have read Harry Wong’s First Days of School. Until you are actually in a classroom, it is hard to know exactly how you will respond and react to certain situations no matter how prepared you are. Here are 4 classroom management tips to point you in the right direction to calm the chaos: in the classroom. These tips are also useful at summer camp, with tutoring clients, at home, and pretty much anywhere you find yourself in charge of a group of kids.
Develop Your Classroom Management
Learning classroom management is an essential skill for teachers and substitutes and will help calm the chaos in the classroom before it gets out of control. In college, I learned great ideas and tips for classroom management, but nothing truly prepares you for those first few minutes and days like actually being in the classroom. You do need to have some basic ideas of how you want your classroom or tutoring sessions to run, but also be flexible as you hone this skill. You will continue to hone your classroom management system over the years and in different settings. So many of my good ideas are a bit outside the box and came out of situations that needed a bit of creativity.
For example, I developed a secret code hand signal to warn my students that their behavior needed improvement. This serves me well in the halls, during assemblies, and on field trips. Nobody likes being called out in public but often it’s needed for classroom management. Hence the code. All my students know what it means, but no one else does unless they are former students. Over the years the hand signal also became a visual symbol that I draw on the back of my ID badge and a code word that I used with my daughters. It works as well as the stern eye your mother gives you across the room!
I still have flashbacks of trying to subtly wave my badge around during a school assembly so that the misbehaving 4th grade student might catch a glimpse of the secret code drawn on the back! And the students sitting nearby nudging the offender and pointing discretely (or not!) at my badge.
Involve the Students
However, even bigger than having a management system is the premise behind it. My students know that there are rules to follow in the classroom, but my students also know that teachers have rules to follow, too. Allowing students to break rules and misbehave is breaking teacher rules set up by the administration. Conversations like this help give order to why we set rules and how communities function together.
Another layer in consistent classroom management is telling my students that as long as they follow a few select rules, I will have their back. First, they are to follow all my rules. Second, if another adult reprimands them for something that I am ok with them doing, they are to reply politely to that adult and stop the action. Then they can talk to me about it. So long as they replied politely to the adult and stopped the action, I will back them up. This was not something that occurs very often, but I do not want my students to argue with another teacher or substitute who might do things differently.
Have Simple Rules
My classroom rules are fairly simple variations on telling the truth, working hard, being kind to others, etc. I have a mailbox on my desk where students can leave me messages about anything they want to ask me or discuss. I meet with them as soon as I have time.
Have consequences that are consistent and fair. If you knock down someone’s pencil box, you need to help clean it up. If you forget your name on your papers on a regular basis, you need to practice writing your name. If you make a mess at snack time, you clean it up. (If you need to know how to clean it up, I teach you to sweep, wipe tables, and vacuum. Not every kid knows how to do these things.)
Be Consistent
I run a tight ship. Students often tell me after a few days that they think I am more fun than they had heard. I ask them not to clear up that rumor! I am both firm and fun.
I encourage my students to problem solve, give proof for their arguments, and tell them that knowledge is power. If they argue about who has the right answer, I tell them to prove it. (Cue the flipping of textbook pages as they both try to prove their answers.) I also teach them to acknowledge when they are wrong and apologize if needed. Because this is a normal occurrence in my classroom, it is not a huge embarrassment to acknowledge being wrong, but a normal part of the learning experience and community.
Chaos abounds where mutual respect, rules, and high expectations do not. Rules and boundaries can be freedoms, not punishments. Classroom management can encourage independence and pride in a job well done not discouragement and obedience out of fear.
Whether I am teaching in the classroom, substituting in someone else’s room, or tutoring online, I am always setting high expectations, encouraging independence, and building community. I ❤️ my job!
More classroom management tips
​https://tailorjoy.com/in-order/​
​https://tailorjoy.com/be-honest​
Ready to calm the chaos at home?
​https://tailorjoy.com/the-middle-years-calming-the-chaos/​
​https://www.tailorjoy.com/the-middle-years-the-consequences/​
​https://www.tailorjoy.com/the-middle-years-the-promises/​
Table Talk: What teacher has the best classroom management style? How consistent do your kids or students say you are? Is it better to be firm or fun as a teacher?
Ready to CLEAN the chaos in the classroom? Read the next blog post coming next week.
Read more here. https://www.tailorjoy.com/together/
Reader, I want you to smile more and sigh less. Choose to see the joy in life this week! Visit my website for more tips and tools to help you be ready for whatever the day may bring. www.tailorjoy.com
Got questions or comments? Hit "reply" and email me. I would love to hear from you.
Jennifer
Monthly Product Spotlight: Clean the Chaos: At Home
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Cost: $45 for over $500 worth of content and resources. That’s paying less than $1 a week for a year of decluttering tips and motivational emails!
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Tip: Get a friend to take the course with you and keep each other accountable!
Thanks!
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More Resources
Read:
​https://tailorjoy.com/waiting-games/ free printable
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Teacher. Tutor. Traveler. Tailor of joy.
Meet Jennifer Donaldson. ​
"I’m a wife, mom, grandma, and certified teacher offering private tutoring, business coaching, educational resources, useful printables, online courses, practical advice, and joy!"
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#tailorjoy = intentionally seeing the joy in everyday life
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